Nicole Helm - Wyoming Christmas Ransom

His vision cleared a little, and he could just barely make out Gracie’s face hovering above him. The world around them was dark but some light swathed her face, and he could see every feature.

He had the oddest urge to reach out and touch her face. Touch her hair. Anything to assure himself she was real and here, and that all that worry and fear on her face was for him. Him .

I care about you, Will .

Turns out even half-dead after a car accident those words could still haunt and chill him.

“Will, an ambulance is on the way. Don’t try to move. But, can you talk? Say something?” She leaned closer, the wisps of her hair sliding across his cheek, which felt like it had been ripped off.

“Say something to me, please,” she whispered, and he thought he saw a few tears slide down her cheeks.

Say something. He had to say something. Make all this stop. She could cry when he was full dead instead of just half.

“Believe me now?” he rasped.

A pained expression crossed her face and she looked up, her face turning into a flashing red light.

“The ambulance is here,” she said quietly. “I’m going to go flag them down. Don’t—”

But he gripped her arm with the one hand that was functioning and didn’t feel like it was being stabbed by a machete. “Don’t go.” He had the panicked thought that if she left he would die, and he found he wasn’t quite interested in that prospect.

“I’ll get them.”

Will didn’t know whose voice that was. He only knew it was male and Will didn’t particularly care for it. Had she been on a date?

But he didn’t have time to dwell on that uncomfortable thought as footsteps and voices surrounded them. Then he was being touched and prodded and moved, and he tried to bite back groans of pain, but he couldn’t manage it.

Then he was on a stretcher, being moved and jerked into an ambulance.

“Gracie.”

“I’m here,” she said, and though he couldn’t see her with the paramedics looming over him, a slim, cool hand slid into his.

More voices, more movement, a door slam. And through it all, Gracie’s hand held his. Like she’d been doing for the past two years. The only person he’d come to rely on.

“What happened?” she asked gently as a paramedic shined a light into one eye and then the other.

“The brakes and steering went out.”

The paramedic worked on him, but Will couldn’t seem to force himself to let go of Gracie’s hand.

“It wasn’t any accident, Gracie. It wasn’t.”

She didn’t say anything to that so he attempted to squeeze her hand, even though it hurt like hell.

“Gracie?”

“Deputy Mosely is looking at your car. There’ll be an investigation.”

Will snorted, then swallowed down a gasp of pain. “Yeah, I know how those go.” He could feel her sigh of a breath against his temple. She moved so he could look at her while the paramedic did something awful to his arm that wasn’t holding on to Gracie.

Her big brown eyes were filled with tears and worry, and he wanted to look away from that kind of emotion, but God, it hurt too bad to even close his eyes.

She touched his forehead again, a gentle glide of her fingertips. “Rest. Let’s get you better, and then we’ll figure out what’s going on.”

“You don’t believe me,” he said flatly.

“I don’t know what to believe,” she returned on a pained whisper.

But it wasn’t him. Never him.

Chapter Four

“There’s evidence of tampering.”

Gracie looked up at Laurel, who stood in the waiting room at the hospital, dressed in her detective khakis and county sheriff’s department polo, looking serious and stern.

Believe me now? Will’s words kept looping around in her head whether she was dozing or awake while she waited to hear the extent of Will’s injuries. Which they wouldn’t tell her because she was no one to Will.

“Can you find out how he’s doing?”

Laurel smiled thinly. “You know I can’t. They’re not going to tell you anything, either. Why don’t you go home? Get some rest. Come back later.”

Gracie shook her head, linking her hands in an effort to keep her composure. If she dug her fingernails into the tops of her hands she could focus on the pinch instead of the guilt swamping her.

She’d been this close to deleting his message unheard, and she just... He would have died. He would have died. He’d be dead if she had done that. “What kind of tampering was it?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, either.” Laurel was firm, but apologetic. If Gracie didn’t know Laurel as well as she did she might have tried to beg, wheedle or manipulate, but Laurel wouldn’t budge. She took her badge more seriously than she took just about everything.

“He’s in danger,” Gracie said flatly.

“I think that’s a safe assumption.”

Gracie met Laurel’s gaze. “You know what this means.”

Laurel sighed. “Not necessarily. If it has something to do with Paula Cooper’s crash... It’s been years. There was no tampering done to her car back then. There’s no evidence this connects at all.”

“Yet.”

Laurel sighed again and slid into the seat next to Gracie. “I’m going to look into it. If I find a link, I’ll investigate it, but you both need to understand this is for the police to figure out.”

Gracie knew Laurel was right, but she also knew Will had come to Rightful Claim, told her he’d figured out a pattern and then his car had been tampered with. Those couldn’t be coincidences.

Laurel would be thorough, Gracie had no doubt. Even if Laurel wasn’t getting married to a Carson, Gracie knew her cousin too well to ever think she’d not follow a lead just because the deceased was a Carson. If there was some connection, Laurel would find it.

Eventually. But Will was in a hospital room with who knew what kind of injuries and Gracie knew she didn’t have time for eventually.

“Gracie.” Laurel’s voice took on a sterner tone. “Promise me you two will let the police handle this.”

Gracie didn’t want to lie to her cousin, but she also didn’t know how she could possibly agree.

“Ms. Delaney?”

Both her and Laurel turned to the nurse, who smiled kindly. Melina knew both of them because their work often brought them to the hospital and since Melina had been Gracie’s babysitter once upon a time. “Not you, Deputy. Gracie, Mr. Cooper is able to see visitors now, and he’s asked for you, if you’d like to go back.”

Gracie hopped to her feet, but so did Laurel.

“I’ll need to speak with Mr. Cooper.”

Melina nodded. “That’ll be fine, but he specifically asked for Gracie. Room 203.”

Laurel started striding that way, but Gracie hurried in front of her. “Laurel, listen, I need you to do me a favor.”

“I’m here in a professional capacity.”

“Please, let me go alone.”

“Gracie.”

“Please, just... Just give me a few minutes alone. I’m not asking you not to question him, I’m just asking that you let me... Look...” She swallowed at the emotion clogging her throat. “Maybe you don’t understand why, but I feel responsible. At least partially. If I’d handled this even remotely differently—”

“You don’t know what would have happened.”

“Maybe not, but... As my best friend and my cousin and just the best human being I know, please give me five minutes alone with him. Personal minutes.”

Laurel sighed heavily. “Five minutes. And I’m right outside the door.”

Gracie gave Laurel an impulsive hug. “Thank you.” Five minutes wasn’t enough really. She’d probably cry when she saw him again. After all, she’d cried in that ambulance. Hopefully Will didn’t remember that.